Two visions of Metropolis; Movies with women in main roles make more money; Domestic violence in The Long Goodbye; An interview with Thelma Schoonmaker; Dissecting male violence and beginning a conversation that needs to be had.

Marie writes: It was my birthday June 25th. Unlike Roger however, I'm a Crab not a Gemini. So to celebrate and with my brother's help (he has a car), I took my inner sea crustacean to Barnet Marine Park on the other side of Burnaby Mountain... and where our adventure begins....

This is a special free sample of the Newsletter members receive weekly. It contains content gathered from several past issues and reflects the diversity of what you'll find inside the Ebert Club. For Roger's invitation to the Club, go HERE.

"There is a stubbornness about me that can never bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

The Grand Poobah's report from the Michigan woods: I'm still out here flashing back for my memoirs. We drove to nearby Sawyer to load up on groceries for one of my recipes for The Pot; we're having the neighbors in for dinner. It is impossible to visit Sawyer without my assistant, Carol Iwata, visiting the soda fountain at Schlipp's Pharmacy. Here she's just finished slurping up a chocolate milk shake made with chocolate ice cream. If you look hard you can see the pharmacist in the mirror.

Michael Mann is one of those select American directors who has become a brand name -- not by marketing himself, but by making movies so distinctive and with such visual fluency that they are immediately identifiable as Michael Mann films. With the release of the darker-toned feature film version of his candy-colored 1980s television series "Miami Vice," we look back at what Roger Ebert has written about Mann and his movies over the years.